Chapter Twenty-Eight
I hear mumbling. Two voices—one low and cold, the other like hellfire. My eyelids are heavy, and there’s a sharp pain like a knife in my stomach.
“What were you thinking?”
“I’m trying to—”
“If you’d asked me, I’d have told you it wouldn’t have worked to lock her away.”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“I’m her best friend. You two can’t even decide if you want to claw each other’s eyes out or bury your tongues down each other’s throats.”
“Careful, Crémant. I’m not in a forgiving mood.”
“I cower in fear.”
Gingerly, with no small amount of pain, I sit up and pry my eyes open. Roze and Cerise stop bickering immediately. Roze takes a step toward me, but Cerise elbows him out of the way and rushes to my side, putting a hand on my forehead.
“How do you feel?” she asks. Her expression is more worried than I’ve ever seen her.
“Horrible,” I try to say, but my throat produces a dry cough instead. Cerise hands me a glass of water, and I take several large gulps before I try to speak again.
“What happened?” I ask.
“You were poisoned,” Roze says. He drags a chair over to the side of the chaise and plops himself down in it. He rests his crossed feet up on the edge of the chaise beside my shoulder.
“Waffles came and got me,” Cerise says. “I found you unconscious and covered in spilled tea.”
At the mention of his name, Saint Waffles grunts from the end of the chaise, resting his scaly head on my shin and looking balefully up at me. “I’m all right, Waffles.”
I wonder how he could have possibly escaped the room. But I remember there are times when he’s broken out of my room when I’d sworn I left the door locked. Gargoyles certainly are strange, mischievous little creatures.
Roze breaks in. “She couldn’t carry you by herself. It was lucky she was able to find me.”
Cerise glares at him. “Oh yes, so lucky. Tell me, how much do you know about poisons, Your Highness? She wouldn’t be breathing right now if I hadn’t been there.”
Roze gives me a chastening look. “Speaking of which, what were you thinking, drinking something someone else gave you? From now on, the only food or drink you can trust is what I’ve tested first.”
“Or me,” Cerise amends, but Roze gives her a look like he doesn’t want to allow it. “I gave you an antidote,” Cerise says. “But it’ll be a while before you’re back to normal. Who gave you that tea?”
I lean my head back on the cushion and stare at the ceiling. “It was the Queen. She was disguised as Professor Borges,” I say. I’m sure of it. Though my brain was addled at the time, her final words to me still ring in my head. She called Roze her son.
“Belladonna?” Cerise asks.
“No, Queen Maria.”
Cerise’s dark brows twist. “The dead Queen?”
“It’s complicated. She’s not … entirely dead.” I wipe a hand down my face and make eye contact with Roze. “How was she able to poison me? I thought you said she couldn’t harm me directly?”
He works his jaw thoughtfully. “She didn’t. She offered you tea. You drank it.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “That’s quite a loophole.”
“Magic can be impish that way. You need to be more wary of the gifts you accept.”
“You’re saying this is my fault?”
“I’m saying everything comes at a price, darling.”
Cerise raises her eyebrows as she watches this exchange, and I try not to read into her expression. When she looks at me, she says, “I thought you knew—Professor Borges was arrested. She’s been locked up in the dungeons.”
Both Roze and I turn our attention to her.
“Why? How do you know?” Roze asks.
“She’s not the only one. It’s like some sort of inquisition down there. People in the caverns are being arrested on the smallest suspicion of being a meiga.”
It’s started. Belladonna is doing the Queen’s dirty work—throwing people in the dungeons in an attempt to root me out.
I meet Cerise’s eyes, realizing that I haven’t faced her since Kole’s death, since the whole Kingdom found out what I was, how dangerous I was. She must have heard—there were so many witnesses.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, “and none of this was your fault.”
I want to snuff her words out like a flame, suffocate them with shadows the way I did Kole. “How can you say that? I killed our friend, Cerise.”
“It was an accident.”
“It doesn’t matter. And now all these other people are being locked up on my account—”
Roze groans theatrically. “Don’t blame yourself for my mother’s insanity, Sinclair. Listening to your self-flagellation, as heroic as it may seem, is exhausting, and I’ve just carried you up too many flights of stairs to entertain it.”
I meet his gaze, about to snap back at him, but his eyes pierce mine, prying me open, laying bare all the guilt I feel.
He drops his feet to the floor and leans in close to me, his lips close enough that I can almost taste the poison.
“And in case you get any ideas about avenging those unfortunate souls down in the dungeons, let me make something perfectly clear—you are not to leave this tower again.”
I bite down on my tongue, glaring back into his silver eyes.
As soon as Cerise is gone, I’m going to let him know exactly how I feel about being locked in this tower.
It was one thing after Kole, but not even getting lost in the castle walls and being poisoned by the Queen has made me forget that Roze has been lying to me.
I can’t allow him to keep me here while both our lives are in his hands.
“Thank you for your assistance, Crémant,” Roze says, turning to Cerise. “You’re no longer needed. You can return to Marquet-Blanc House.”
Cerise narrows her eyes at him. “Like hell.”
I take her hand, and her gaze swings toward mine. I squeeze her hand, give her a hard look that says everything I don’t want to say in front of Roze. “It’s all right,” I say. “I’m fine. You can go now.”
She frowns, but she turns to Roze and says, “Keep her hydrated and resting, Roquelart. No food till morning, and only small amounts after that.”
Roze nods.
Cerise stands, but she grips my hand harder. I know she doesn’t want to leave, but I need to figure this out with Roze. And there are parts of this that even Cerise can’t know.
“Thanks for saving my life,” I say, managing a smile.
She smirks. “You handle my snakes, and I’ll handle your poison.”
“You handled the snakes too. But, deal.”
Cerise turns to leave and says over her shoulder, “Take care of her, Highness. Anything happens to her, I’ll kill you myself.”
I brace myself for Roze’s retort, but to my shock he says, “You have my word.”
I glance at him, and he’s looking at Cerise with utter conviction.
Cerise holds his stare for another moment and nods. She spares me one last glance before she passes through the doorway and latches the door behind her—I pray it won’t be the last time I see her.
With Cerise gone, I whip my head toward Roze, ignoring the pounding in my head, the pain in my stomach. “You have some explaining to do.”
He lifts an eyebrow.
I stand on wobbly feet and retrieve the book of poetry from the bookshelf. Sitting back down on the chaise, I shove it in his face. “What is this?”
He gives me a flat look. “A book. Obviously.”
“Don’t be cute.”
He leans back. “You’ll have to specify your complaint, Sinclair. I took a book of poems from the library. I committed no crime.”
“You marked it with my ribbon.” The words feel thick in my throat. I open the book on my lap, pointing to the particular line that has haunted me for six days. “That’s a translation of the line in the Book of Castelle—the line written in ancient Aragoise. You don’t know ancient Aragoise.”
He shrugs. “I know a little—part of my early royal education. Not as well as you, admittedly.”
“Roze—”
“Fine,” he says, and sighs. “I searched the professor’s office days ago, same as you. And I stole your exam.”
I blink at him, letting my gaze fall back to the poem, back to those words. “Why?”
“Frankly, I didn’t believe that Borges is innocent. I wanted to get my hands on anything that connected the two of you.”
I’m annoyed that that makes sense. As much as I want to believe in Professor Borges’s innocence, I can’t help but see the logic in what he’s saying. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why did you feign a fainting spell so you could sneak away to her office by yourself ?”
Touché.
My eyes land on the fire, flickering peacefully. Either Roze or Cerise must’ve lit it to keep me warm while I was unconscious. “We might’ve been more effective if we’d trusted one another.”
“A little late for that, darling,” he murmurs, offering a sly grin that I’m in no mood to return.
We’ve both lied and schemed our way through this week, but despite that, I have grown to trust him—not to tell the truth, not to refrain from violence or forgive his enemies, but to do what’s necessary to protect those he cares for. And … maybe I’ve become one of those people.
“Why did you take my ribbon?” I whisper, not meeting his eyes.
He’s quiet for a long, precious moment. “Isn’t it obvious?”
My heart staggers. “You hate me.”
It’s both a fact and a challenge.
“I never hated you.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “No?”
“My feelings for you have always been … complicated.” He sighs. “Most of the time I wasn’t sure what I felt for you … only that I … felt.”
I watch him closely as he picks a bit of imaginary lint off his trousers.
“And frankly, that separates you from everyone else. I grew up so used to feeling nothing, not really caring for anyone except myself. You … intrigued me.” He folds his fingers together in his lap and cocks his head at me.
“You showed up at Vandenberghe one day, arms full of books, derision on your lips, and I was stricken.” He smiles at me—that smile could level kingdoms. “Such a strange, deplorable, lovely creature, Viola Sinclair.”